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This chapter analyses the legal rules governing unexpected circumstances in contract law in the mixed legal systems of Louisiana and Scotland. The subject lies at the heart of commercial law, and one of the most interesting issues is likely to be whether the influence of the United States and England, world-leading commercial systems, has been dominant. The subject poses challenges to the comparatist. Louisiana, like many other legal systems, employs more than one legal concept in this area. By contrast, in Scots law, the unitary concept of frustration is applied to all cases. Other obstacles...

This chapter analyses the legal rules governing unexpected circumstances in contract law in the mixed legal systems of Louisiana and Scotland. The subject lies at the heart of commercial law, and one of the most interesting issues is likely to be whether the influence of the United States and England, world-leading commercial systems, has been dominant. The subject poses challenges to the comparatist. Louisiana, like many other legal systems, employs more than one legal concept in this area. By contrast, in Scots law, the unitary concept of frustration is applied to all cases. Other obstacles to be overcome include structural differences in the law of contract, and the difficult boundary between unexpected circumstances and error. Despite these difficulties, the chapter concludes that the two mixed legal systems can indeed learn from one another, in particular by drawing on the best parts of the different sources available to them.